Kill Game
by Musafreen
Summary: Connor Stoll learns that two weeks in Camp not protected by the Pine Tree is two weeks at Camp where you get to run around gaining battle experience. Set during Sea of Monsters. Campfic.


**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Not for profit.

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**Kill Game**

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"The camp had been through a hard two weeks. The arts and crafts cabin had burned to the ground from an attack by a Draco Aionius (which as near as I could figure was Latin for "really-big-lizard-with-breath-that-blows-stuff-up ")."

- _Percy Jackson and the __Sea of Monsters_

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_**Day -3**_

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It all started with a clandestine meeting in the Cabin Eleven.

The Hermes Cabin was great for things like hiding out from the harpies after curfew- the god of travelers didn't mind it when his cabin was used as an impromptu meeting house. The non-meeting occupants of the room had been shunted off to various other cabins for the duration of the night- which was a situation with a few complications, but that was pretty much unavoidable.

(There was, for example, an undersized son of Iris (not that he knew it) currently trying not to tremble in his temporary bunk in the Ares Cabin. This experience would later prompt him to get a tattoo –albeit one of a rainbow- and go by the name of 'Butch', because Cabin Five were masters of subconscious psychological penetration. Unintentionally, anyway.)

At any rate, there was a meeting going on in the Hermes Cabin at the moment. Travis, at fifteen, was the youngest official Cabin Head _and_ had the added disadvantage of being in the shadow of the Luke Castellan. Powerful, handsome, blessed and traitorous. So he'd chickened out and bribed Connor into staying with him and granted him the official title of Cabin co-captain.

Ultimately, this made Connor the youngest in the entire group, period. The two Ares representatives had not been particularly impressed.

"Okay, guys," Malcom Wise (aged fourteen, and visibly relieved that he wasn't the youngest anymore, damn him) banged his spear against the nearest bunk, "Settle down."

Charles Beckendorf from Hephaestus, Silena Beauregard from Aphrodite (Connor was surprised they had even bothered to send in a representative, to be honest), Mark and Sherman Cooper from Ares (who kept giving him flat looks), a nervous Malcolm from Athena (which Connor couldn't blame him for- Annabeth probably left a couple of really big boots to fill), Marjorie Bryce from Demeter, Amelia Sol from Apollo, Castor and Pollux Green from Dionysus, and him and Connor for Hermes. All cabins present and accounted for.

"So, here's what we do," Mark started once the noise had died down, "We form two squardrons, one patrols while the other rests, and then they switch. Simple, no stupid strategies. All in favor?"

"Um, is this necessary?" Pollux asked, "I mean, people have gone for the quest to take care of this and all so isn't it kind of… redundant?"

"We do need to give them a Camp to get back to," Malcolm pointed out, obviously trying his hardest to be reasonable, "And besides, with Clarisse leading the quest, we're not even sure how far they'll-"

The temperature in the room suddenly decreased by two degrees and Malcom got the most epic of 'oh crap' faces. Because while people in the Ares cabin were allowed to bitch about everyone else in the Ares Cabin, other cabins were not allowed to do it under pain of atomic wedgies.

"Nevermind," Malcom said quickly, "So, all in favor of reinforcing the patrols?"

Prompted by dual concerns- Camp being destroyed and the Ares brothers possibly trying to run them through with a spear, everyone unanimously agreed to the proposal. Connor should have known that agreeing with the Ares Campers about anything was going to backfire on them. But to be fair, it worked perfectly well for about thirty-two hours.

_After_ thirty-two hours, the fire-breathing flying lizards showed up.

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_**Day -1**_

* * *

Two days after the first meeting, they had another one. This one was mostly prompted by the aerial attacks and partially prompted by people in the Apollo Cabin having hair-trigger tempers. Which, granted, was not typically an Apollo trait- but it turned out that consistent screeches of "why don't you and your stupid arrows do something about the stupid flying lizards you-" tended to drive even the most level-headed healers mad. Amelia Sol had shown up nursing a massive headache, several heartfelt arguments about why her cabin cursing people to speak in rhyme was justified, and a quiver of gleaming bronze arrows. Charles Beckendorf was working on a bronze sword hilt and Malcolm looked like he was ready to go running for his father (it turned out that the goddess of wisdom was not much of a Mom- go figure).

Oh, and the Cooper brothers were ready to fly at people's throats at a moment's notice, but that wasn't exactly unusual.

"We have dragons," Mark declared, viciously rubbing at his half-burnt hair.

"Actually, they're _Draco Aoin_- nevermind," Malcolm visibly tried not to duck at the force of Sherman's glare, "Um. Obviously, we will need to rethink our methods here."

There was silence, and everyone looked expectantly at Malcolm, who smiled weakly.

"Um. Does _anyone_ have any ideas?"

"You are so full of crap," Mark told him.

"Hey, this is the first time I'm doing this moderating thing, all right?" Malcolm protested, "I'm not Annabeth-"

"No kidding," Amelia muttered, "Look, if the Hephaestus Cabin would just make the canons already we could-"

"We're making them as fast as we can," Beckendorf spoke up from his corner, "But we have to keep repairing everyone's damaged weapons, and that last attack took out our supply of flammables. We're working-"

"And while you work? We just sit here and let ourselves get burned?" Marjorie demanded, "The forest was almost on fire last time- do you have any idea what the dryads-"

"Hey," Silena snapped, "He's trying. _You_ have any bright ideas, please be willing to share them."

Beckendorf blushed. Mark rolled his eyes.

"We still need a plan," Malcolm told them, "And yeah, I know. I should be coming up with one, but not all of us are strategists, all right? I figure since the Apollo kids are the only ones who can even get within reach of the things we should-"

Sherman Cooper made a frustrated noise of sheer despair, and pointed an accusatory finger at Malcolm.

"Son of wisdom, shut your mouth,

Can't you see this has gone south?

Plans are for complete wimps!

Instead we should give them limps!"

This was, of course, greeted by complete silence. It was one thing to know that Sherman had been cursed by a particularly vindictive Apollo camper. Quite another to actually see it in action.

Marjorie spent the rest of the night trying not to look at Sherman and snigger while Sherman had substituted words with growls- which actually worked out quite well for him. Beckendorf, being one of those rare sane campers, had pointedly avoided all conversation and worked on various sharp and menacing weapons instead. The rest of them, after much complaining and bickering and shooting other people down (although only figuratively, even for Amelia), decided that since there were _two_ dragons, there should be two groups hunting each dragon; one Ares style, and one Athena style.

Camp had this way of turning everything into a miniature Capture-the-Flag scenario.

A universal characteristic of all battles was that no plan ever survived first contact with the enemy. Since CHB-ers were well aware of this (it was one of the reasons for the enduring Athena-Ares debate of Flexible Planning versus Why Even Bother), Connor found himself appointed Official Liaison; which was Malcolm's fancy way of saying "guy who gets to run around dodging fiery blasts to convey insults from one group to another". He couldn't complain, though- since Travis found himself in a Group A (which Mark promptly renamed the Buttkickers, under Sherman's pointed glare) with the Ares brothers, and would presumably end up being bait for whatever spur-of-the-moment strategy the Coopers came up with.

Group B (mostly Malcolm, Amelia and Marjorie) spent the rest of the night planning, and after the second contingency plan Connor figured that if he listened to any more of this, he was likely to run away from Camp before the actual fight started. He was totally going to leave Travis to deal with this cabin leader thing on his own from now on, bribes or no bribes.

* * *

_**Day 0**_

* * *

He was woken up at an ungodly hour by (of course) Amelia.

"Rise and shine, Connor," she said cheerfully. Apollo campers were always disgustingly cheerful at five in the morning. They claimed it was genetic. Everyone else had more or less decided it was sadism.

He glared at her. Amelia, master of pointy ranged missiles and terror of half the Ares Cabin, remained cheerful. And unimpressed.

Connor sighed and got up, and spent the rest of the morning warming up, trying to stop Travis from hyperventilating, and glaring Malcolm down when he tried to get him to recite the contingency plans. Malcolm had, for once, refused to be cowed and glared right back with a "fine, get yourself killed what do I care". The dragons were wearing down on everyone's nerves.

Since Official Liaison duty apparently started before the actual fighting did, Connor was in a position to see most of the preparatory works. The Hephaestus Cabin was empty- everyone was in the Armory (and had apparently, camped out there last night) in either must-now-prop-up-eyes-with-duct-tape mode or high-on-nectar mode, and the thought of any of them actually having to fight made Connor wince. The Aphrodite Cabin was mostly empty (they tended to vanish at the first sign of trouble), but he found Silena and a brother of hers (Cal? Hal?) in the pegasus stables coaxing temperamental flying horses into being reasonable mounts. The still-in-camp Demeter and Dionysus kids were in a state of confusion, torn between wanting to repair vegetative damage and outfitting themselves into being canon fodder; which made Marjorie even more self-righteously irritated than usual.

The Athena Cabin was a study in organized chaos. Malcolm and his siblings were gathered around scrolls spread out over every available surface, making corrections and calling out things like "trajectory of potential missiles" and "plan A-23-I" while absently polishing the odd sword or putting armor on backwards. It wasn't that Athena campers were ever incompetent, but most of them did tend to forget stuff when they were actively pursuing other stuff.

The Ares Cabin, on the other hand, was a place of simple chaos, no organization necessary. Connor caught an eyeful of Ares campers flexing their muscles and sharpening their weapons before Mark got hold of him.

"Suit up, Stoll," he snapped, pitching a heavy breastplate towards Connor, "You want to get killed before you even scratch the thing?"

Connor caught the armor and tried not to stagger. "I'm a runner, not a fighter," he pointed out, "And anyway, how does armor stop you from getting cooked?"

This line of logic was apparently irrelevant. Mark dragged the armor of Connor with a growl and a "fine get yourself killed what do I care" that was eerily like Malcolm's. Connor sighed and started to jog back to his cabin. At least he could take solace in the fact that they were all committed to trying to survive and not to proving the superiority of their tactics. Or lack thereof.

He'd only gotten halfway there when the signaling trumpet (the Apollo Cabin had complained about their musical instruments being appropriated into being battle-aids, but nobody else listened) wailed out the one long painful note that he and Travis had decided meant "giant flying fire thing we die".

Connor groaned, and jogged faster.

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**Notes:** /looks at notes

Um. This should be a twoshot, I think. Would ahve been better off as oneshot yes I know. But reasons.


End file.
